Irish can't forget last time vs. Todd Graham

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A day before being admitted into the ACC, Pittsburgh's football team held a 17-point fourth-quarter lead in a hostile Big Ten stadium before losing by four.

Sound familiar?

[+] Enlarge AP Photo/Charlie NeibergallNotre Dame has painful memories from its last game against coach Todd Graham, who now leads Pittsburgh. OK, so the Panthers' collapse in a 31-27 loss to Iowa didn't exactly replicate Notre Dame's 35-31 loss at Michigan a week earlier. And, to be fair, the loss Saturday was Pitt's first of the season, so it might not be scratching its head and playing with the same chip on its shoulder that the Fighting Irish did in the culmination of two frustrating weeks Saturday, a 31-13 win against Michigan State for victory No. 1.

Brian Kelly, for one, doesn't think Pitt will let its loss linger.

"They're a football team in a first year with coach [Todd] Graham," Kelly said during a conference call Sunday. "They're still learning, they're still learning about the coaching staff. I know where they are relative to that development. We'll be more concerned with what we do and how we do it then losing a tough game. I know we lost a couple tough games, too, and the first thing he'll probably do is talk about, 'Put that behind you, because you've got Notre Dame coming into town. Because if you let that linger you'll get beat by Notre Dame.'

"So I'm pretty sure what happened last week won't have much effect on what happens this week."

What the Irish should be more concerned about is not letting what happened last year against Graham happen again.

Last year's game against Tulsa, Graham's previous head-coaching stop, was supposed to provide ample opportunity for the Irish to bounce back from a tough loss to Navy and get back over .500.

Instead, the Golden Hurricanes knocked Dayne Crist out of the game, ending his season. They scored 10 unanswered points in the second half and picked off Tommy Rees in the end zone in the final minute, sealing a 28-27 win that was the program's first against a BCS-AQ team since 1996.

More troubling is how they did it.

They blocked an extra point and returned it 98 yards for two the other way.

They returned an interception 66 yards for a touchdown.

And, late in the third quarter, they returned a punt 59 yards for a score.

Notre Dame finally put two weeks of misery behind it with a win this past Saturday, and with a favorable schedule in the next three weeks, it can be tempting for the team to look ahead.

To prevent that, the Irish should look back at the last time they faced a Graham-coached team, and know that the more talented one they will face Saturday may carry an anger that is all-too-familiar.

Notre Dame knew the feeling just a short week ago.

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‘Tough Irishman’ Ryan helps Falcons forget Vick

Published: September 19th, 2011 | Tags: Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons, Dan Reeves, Michael Vick, Mike Smith, Philadelphia Eagles

You have to wonder how Matt Ryan felt seeing thousands of red-and-white Michael Vick jerseys scattered throughout a raucous Georgia Dome crowd Sunday night.

The Falcons’ fourth-year starting QB was overshadowed in the whirlwind leading up to Vick’s return to Atlanta, but Ryan’s grit in a 35-31 victory over the Eagles wasn’t lost on his coach, Mike Smith.

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“He’s a tough Irishman,” Smith told The Associated Press. “I’ve said that before. He gets hit, and he takes that hit and he keeps going. He is a guy that will never give up. When you have a guy like that leading your football team, it’s going to pay dividends in the long run.”

While ex-Falcons coach Dan Reeves believes the organization abandoned Vick in his hour of need, it’s hard to fault the franchise for moving on when the passer’s future — and commitment to football — was up in the air during an 18-month stay in federal prison on dogfighting charges.

Both quarterbacks took a beating Sunday. Vick left the game with a concussion. Ryan hobbled around following a second-half sack, but he rebounded to lead the 14th of his game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime. It was a performance that saved the Falcons’ night and potentially their season. It’s more of the same from Ryan, whose 34 wins in three-plus seasons is just shy of Vick’s 40 in six seasons in Atlanta.

“This is a team that doesn’t blink,” Smith said. “This is a team that stays focused, knows what the task is, and to the best of their abilities goes out and tries to perform.”

– Marc Sessler

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Cowboys latest goof – they forget to renew registration on dallascowboys.com

The Cowboys are not only inept on the field, their website is as well. That’s because the Cowboys, amid all the issues on the field, forgot to renew its registration on the dallascowboys.com domain.

Dallascowboys.com was pulled Sunday night, and replaced with a generic page indicating the address was available for purchase from Network Solutions LLC. The Cowboys recovered though, as they quickly renewed its registration.

Since the team had to panic to get the site re-registered, it takes about 48 hours for all Internet servers to recognize renewals, meaning now if you visit the site – a stock image of two kids playing soccer.

Dallascowboys.com is the second-most-popular NFL website. That is until people saw two kids playing soccer instead of news the firing of Wade Phillips.

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